The night of the long knives is just around the corner
Gershon Baskin
This has been a terrible week for Israel. Although the end of the week brought UN Security Council 1701 which has met most of Israel’s demands, the war has continued and in its (hopefully) final hours it is taking a huge toll in new casualties. With the war in its final hours the “after war” has already begun. Generals, including the Chief of Staff, Ministers, including the Prime Minister, and other officers and politicians are already jockeying for positions to defend themselves or for attacking others in what can be expected to be the very long “night of the long knives” period.
There are a lot of questions that demand answers concerning the preparedness of the army and the home front, the decision-making process in the government, the IDF, the officers on front lines and the linkages between them all. There will be a lot of charges and counter-charges about the level of experience and knowledge of the decision-makers. This past weekend’s newspapers were already filled with stories of “fashles” (screw-ups) on the battle field. For weeks, people have been asking many tactical questions and now they are beginning to ask the main strategic questions: what was achieved and at what price? Should Israel have gone to war now or should we have been better prepared? Why does it appear that the intelligence regarding the ability of Hizbollah to fight was so incorrect? It seems, for example, that the various anti-tank weapons used by Hizbollah were far more effective than thought in taking out the Merkava IV tanks which were believed to be invulnerable. Those same anti-tank weapons were used by Hizbollah on helicopters, buildings and troops. How did Hizbollah manage to shoot an average of almost 200 rockets into Israel everyday? As the IDF captured more territory the amount of successful rocket fire into Israel increased – why? Why were the IDF weapons unable to penetrate the Hizbollah bunkers in Beirut and throughout south Lebanon? Israel had turned down an offer from the US several years ago to purchase the US bunker-busters claiming that Israel had its own more superior version of this bomb.
Just as serious are the questions concerning the home front. Some 1.5 million Israelis were displaced or forced to spend a month underground in shelters. In many cases, the shelters were in terrible condition and could not be used. There were problems of supplies to the home front. There seemed to be no orderly plans for evacuation and now the questions regarding financial compensation for damages and losses will bombard the government with more force than the Katyusha rockets. These questions don’t even touch the important issues concerning the level and extent of damage done by Israel to Lebanon – did this have to happen? Why? What were the alternatives that were not implemented?
Who will pay the price?
The Likud is already on the attack. Voices unheard from in months are beginning to speak out against Olmert, Peretz and everyone else in the government. Netanyahu is back in the media and on full attack. He has, until now, supported the government’s war effort. He has presented himself as taking a loyalist nationalist stance. Now he is on attack because of his opposition to the UN Security Council resolution and because of what seems to be a likely ceasefire to begin tomorrow. Netanyahu and his Likud mates want more blood – more Hizbollah blood, and they fail to realize that the cost of more Hizbollah blood will be more Israeli blood. Those right-wing politicians and the generals, who are calling for more, still believe that Hizbollah can be brought to its knees. They believe that Israel can still dictate the political changes that they want in Lebanon. In the name of the so-called “deterrence” and in the name of Israel's honor, they have no problems sending more young Israelis to their deaths, so that they can capture and hold the next hill and the next village. They want us to stay in the bloody quagmire of Lebanon for years to come. They have learned no lessons from the past or from the current fiasco. But these people will probably not pay the price of the current mess. They will probably inherit the spoils of this war.
Ehud Olmert, Amir Peretz and Dan Halutz are most likely to pay the heaviest political price from this war (aside from the real price of the war paid by those who have lost their lives, their homes, and their livelihoods). This war is considered by most of the public to be a military defeat. Most Israelis think that Israel did not win and that Hizbollah has a much better chance of claiming victory. At this point, most Israelis believe that we will have to face the Hizbollah once again in a few years from now and then they will be even stronger than they are today. Many Israelis believe that already in this war we were essentially facing Iran and Syria on the battlefield and that we should already face both of them directly – and the sooner the better.
Olmert and his Kadima party were elected on a political platform that is today rejected by the Israeli public. The idea of another unilateral withdrawal from the West Bank has lost all of its appeal. Most of the drop in support is from people who think that Israel cannot afford to give up any territory because in a few years from now we will have to go to war to take it back after the Palestinians manage to deploy missiles and rockets that can hit all of Israel. Others oppose the unilateral withdrawals because they believe that we should not do anything outside of negotiations with a Palestinian partner. “No more unilateralism” is their motto (and I am one of them). The Israeli unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon brought both the second intifada and this war in Lebanon. The Israeli unilateral withdrawal from Gaza brought us the Hamas victory.
New opportunities
If Olmert and Peretz do not come up with a bold political initiative in the coming months that will take us beyond Lebanon, they will pay the price and we will be heading for yet another round of new elections, and in those elections, once again the political map of Israel will be changed out of all recognition. The best way to fight off the return of the right is to push forward with the agenda of the left. Forging an aggressive peace agenda, negotiations and a comprehensive regional approach is what Olmert (and Israel) needs in order to bring us to safer shores. The best step would be to bring back the Clinton parameters and the Arab League peace initiative. With the Security Council being held in such high regard lately, perhaps a new initiative for a UN Resolution that would include the Clinton parameters and the Arab League Initiative – with international guarantees and support – could help move us along. Some people have suggested reconvening the Madrid conference of 1991 to bring along the entire region and the international community. All of this can be done, but the basis for any progress must be to rebuild the Israeli-Palestinian partnership. President Mahmoud Abbas is the recognized leader of the Palestinian people – democratically elected and now further backed by the empowering prisoners’ document for Palestinian reconciliation. Olmert must now use the new political environment and his political needs to re-launch the bilateral Israeli-Palestinian track. The first issue on the agenda is the release of Gilead Shalit from his captors in Gaza. Serious negotiations and offers have already placed the resolution of this problem on the doorsteps of the decision makers – it is time for them to decide and to move immediately.
Within the framework of resolving this problem are the means for building Abbas’ position in Palestine. Abbas can be the deliverer of Palestinian prisoners. Abbas can be the deliverer of the Israeli soldier. It is possible, Olmert knows it, Abbas know it, the Egyptians know it, and even the Hamas leadership knows it. This problem can be resolved this week. This would be the first step towards renewing the Israeli-Palestinian track. There is great potential for progress mainly because everyone on both sides is fed up with the current stalemate. This last Middle East war has worked on accentuating everyone’s fatigue with war. Perhaps the political needs of Olmert and Kadima for a strategy of political survival will converge with the real needs of the region to find a less violent means of managing and hopefully resolving our conflict.
Gershon Baskin is the Co-CEO of IPCRI – the Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information.
http://www.ipcri.org/
